Monday, November 5, 2012

Mercury in retrograde: Mediums cool with Obama

ON TUESDAY, Nov. 6 at 7:04 p.m. eastern time, Mercury goes into stationary retrograde at 4º Sagittarius 18’. That fact may not mean jack to you or me, but for several psychics with a political bent, it means that the planets are aligning in such a way that President Obama is a lock for re-election.

Dr. James Hamblin, writing in The Atlantic on Oct. 26, surveyed several publications and psychic sources on their predictions for the 2012 presidential race. Result? Mediums are cool with 44:

“There is some degree of dissent among the psychic/astrologic community as to what our political future is -- and most temporize in saying that it involves a long, nuanced discussion -- but the bottom line consensus is that Obama stays,” Hamblin writes.

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Some verbatim excerpts from his story:

“I had predicted Obama winning like over a year ago," Tara Green, psychic tarot astrology reader consultant, told Voice of Russia. She cited a strong planetary contact which is favorable for Obama. ...

“It might even look like [Romney] will or could win. He may even lead in the poles. But on the day of the election Obama has enough of an astrological edge to beat out Romney," according to psychic/astrologer Denise Siegel, who says her credibility is bolstered by the fact that she predicted the 2000 election would be won by "both candidates.”

[Hamblin’s piece includes an astrological chart for Mitt Romney, a chart that she said contains “a plethora of water,” Hamblin reports that Seigel said “Romney's chart, bluntly, 'terrifies' her.” On her astrology Web site, Seigel expands on that: “Pluto, which rules the job of President, is making terrible aspects to Romney during this period until the election, which is why all this is coming to the surface – the real Romney. Obama on the other hand has a lot of support, trines and positive aspects.”]

Sidney Friedman in Chicago, who boasts a "nearly 100 percent" success record in Academy Award predictions and a 71 percent overall accuracy (pretty data-minded, for a psychic) gives it to Obama. Friedman's call is great because he gets so confidently specific: "[Obama] will not win states like Indiana, which he won last time, but he will win two southern states, including North Carolina or Virginia ... Mitt Romney will not win his home state of Massachusetts."

A panel of renowned astrologers at the United Astrology Conference in New Orleans this past May unanimously said it would go to Obama. The diverse group included Gary Christen (Uranian astrology and Cosmobiology), Edith Hathaway (Indian or Vedic astrology), Nina Gryphon (Medieval and Renaissance), Claude Weiss (Modern western astrology), and Chris Brennan (Hellenistic astrology). …

THE TIMING of Hamblin’s story, and the fact that some of his sources offered predictions months ago — or “over a year ago,” in the one case — means that such genuinely big events like Superstorm Sandy couldn’t be factored in.

We haven’t seen any updates on Hamblin’s original story that make allowances for Sandy’s impact one way or the other. There’s also no way the psychics could have made allowances for such potentially disruptive outlier events like the voter suppression efforts underway in some of the pivotal swing states.

So, apparently the prevailing psychic wisdom holds strong for the president’s re-election. Silly? No more than the “Redskins rule” that some in the community of political analysts and seers are invoking to make a prediction. That rule’s supporters will point to the strong correlation between a win or loss by the Washington, D.C. NFL team and the win or loss by the incumbent party.

Shameless Self-Promotion II

America from 2004 to 2009 – its new ironies and old habits, its capacity for change – is topic A in this collection of essays and blog posts on popular culture, the Iraq war, Hurricane Katrina, a transformative election, and the first 100 days of the Obama administration. | Now available at Authorhouse

shameless self-promotion

One nation subject to change: A collection of topical essays exploring television, hip-hop, patriotism, the use of language under Bush II, and the author's own reckoning with mortality. | Available at Authorhouse

A veteran journalist, producer and blogger, Michael Eric Ross is a frequent contributor to the content channels of Jerrick Media, and a periodic contributor to TheWrap, a major online source of entertainment news and analysis. He writes from Los Angeles on the arts, politics, race and ethnicity, and pop culture. A graduate of the University of Colorado, he's worked as a reporter, editor and critic at several newspapers and websites, including The New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Jose Mercury News, MSN, Current and NBCNews.com. He was formerly an adjunct professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. His writing has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, Wired, Entertainment Weekly, PopMatters, Salon, The Root, seattlepi.com, NPR.com, theGrio, BuzzFeed, Medium and other publications. Author of the novel Flagpole Days (2003); and essay collections Interesting Times (2004) and American Bandwidth (2009), he contributed to the anthologies MultiAmerica (edited by Ishmael Reed, 1997) and Soul Food (2000).